


gendha phool

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, India, Marriage, Post-Colonial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:48:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Cordelia put a hand to her mouth. "Apparently Simon undertook a ceremony, once, when he was nineteen. A betrothal ceremony."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	gendha phool

**Author's Note:**

> For hedda62, for the trope meme prompt, "pretending to be married".

Parampara was a small, distant, temperate world several wormhole jumps and then quite some distance away. Its ecosystems were tiny but complete, broad temperate zones bordered by a half-dozen glaciers, a thin strip of sub-tropical rainforest and a desert the size of a county. "Not quite as idyllic a paradise as Ylla," Gregor said, "but interesting. I think it'll do."

Simon was thinking that it was interesting, and also that Gregor was a good man and a good Emperor and deserved a quiet life of faithful service. "I think it will do very nicely, sire," he said, and Gregor smiled.

*

"There are a great many languages spoken there," Alys said, looking up from her viewer. "English and French, and Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Tamil in the main, and but many regional languages, minor dialects and such. I'm learning some Hindi and Bengali, to begin."

"I'm sure I've read," Cordelia said, "that English is widely spoken by almost everyone."

"Yes," Alys said, "but it's not diplomatic, to come empty-handed."

Cordelia nodded. "Alys," she said after a moment, "you know, don't you, that I am the Vicereine of Sergyar in my own right? Not just because I'm…"

Alys inclined her head. "Gregor understands the value of complementary approaches to an ambassadorial post. And besides," she added, after a moment, "I'm not married, Cordelia."

"No," Cordelia agreed, hiding her smile. "Of course not."

*

Afterwards Simon dated the trouble to the particular moment when he picked a metal tumbler off a tray of its fellows and Shrimati Prathibha Devayani Chattopadhyaya said, beckoning back the server: "But you must take some for your wife, also."

Simon sipped the water and opened his mouth to say, _she's not my_ – and then remembered the briefing material and his own first visit to this planet, forty-six years and half a lifetime ago, and said, "Yes, ma'am."

"Dhokla?"

"Thank you," Simon said, and bit into it. The President smiled at him fondly and handed him another. On the maidaan the uniforms glinted in the sun, and the flowers rioted colour on every surface. 

Alys said, "Thank you, love" – and drank deeply from the tiny cup, her only sign of discomfort under in the blistering noonday heat. The welcoming speeches continued.

*

"A letter from Alys," Cordelia said, looking up from her correspondence at the breakfast table. "It's going well, apparently. Simon has made some headway towards persuading the Paramparans that what they want to do is export sugar cane, communications technology and economists to Barrayar. And Alys has learned how to drape a sari. She says it's amazing, what people tell you, while you're doing it."

"I'm not surprised he's making a go of it, but I didn't think it was going to be quite in Simon's area of expertise." Miles was leaning back in his chair, looking reflective. "Sasha, love, drink your milk and don't bathe in it. You know, the planet doesn't have a local equivalent of ImpSec. Nor any police force of any kind."

"That's interesting," Cordelia said. "I suppose that's not because it's entirely law-abiding?"

"No." Miles paused. "Apparently they have a network of entirely civilian enforcement – aunts, grandmothers, cousins, family connections of all sorts."

"Nothing like Barrayar, then," Ekaterin said archly.

"Quite." Cordelia returned to her letter.

*

On the other hand, the trouble could have been said to have started after dark one quiet evening, at the moment an elderly woman with clinking red bangles and eyes as determinedly implacable as onyx appeared on the veranda of their little bungalow and said, "Simon Illyan?"

"Yes," Simon said, and Alys looked up. "That's me."

" _Beta_ , you must come with me."

*

Alys stayed where she was. Out on the veranda in the soft, luxuriously warm night, the scent of night-blooming flowers drifting in from the garden, she swung slowly in the _jhula_ , back and forth, back and forth, waiting for Simon.

When he appeared at the end of the garden path, he was alone, walking slowly. There were crushed marigold petals in his hands and around his neck, bright yellow even in the dim light spilling out from the house.

"Alys," he said, coming to sit beside her so his weight stilled the movement for a moment. It began again slowly, picking up momentum as they came back into balance. "How would you feel about being married to me?"

Alys said, "Simon…"

"Because," Simon said, "I rather think our getting off this planet unscathed may depend on it."

*

Miles let out a breath and said, "Mother, please explain that again."

Cordelia put a hand to her mouth. "Apparently Simon undertook a ceremony, once, when he was nineteen. A betrothal ceremony."

Miles was still finding this hard going. "A non-legally binding ceremony, more then forty years ago?"

"There are some cultures where he wouldn't have reached his majority, at nineteen," Ekaterin pointed out.

Cordelia's brow furrowed. "Apparently… these people take marriage very seriously."

Ekaterin didn't look any less confused. "But… why?"

*

"Why?" Alys asked.

The day had dawned somewhat cooler than the day before had been. Simon scrubbed at his eyes. "Alys, please believe me, please, when I say I _do not remember_. But from knowing myself" – his eyes glittered – "| suspect it was because I thought she was a Cetagandan spy."

"Simon," Alys said, quietly, "is that the only reason you can possibly think of for having promised this woman that…" 

She trailed off. 

Simon sighed. "Either I did it because I was a covert agent trying to get closer to a potential target, or because I was nineteen years old and a long way from home. I don't know which is worse."

Alys kissed him, to his obvious surprise. They stood there looking at each other in the clear white light of the world's sun. "Neither of which," she said, "you could exactly help being at the time."

"Yes." Simon blinked, and gave her a tiny smile. "Tell me, what do we do now?"

*

"Is it really that difficult, for them to pretend they're married?" Miles wondered aloud. "It's Simon and Aunt Alys. They're practically…"

He broke off, as Cordelia and Ekaterin glared at him.

*

They attended upon the family in the post-sunset hour. Shouts and giggles echoed down the stairwell; from the kitchen came the clanging sounds of bells. "Prasad," said the old lady, and Alys took it, right hand over left, and fed it to him.

It was, Simon thought dizzily, quite the most intimate thing that had passed between them in public on this world. 

" _Bol_ ," said the old lady, when Simon had brushed the sugar from his lips.

"Madam," Simon said, with Alys's hand held tightly in his own, "I understand what I did. But I have since…" He gestured at Alys. "I am married according to the customs of my people."

The venerable old lady rocked forwards in her chair and frowned. "Children," she pronounced, "do not understand the gravity of these things."

"At the time we're talking about, I was a child," Simon said. 

"No matter." The old lady glared. "We all are children when we marry, playing at grown-up families. Love comes at the end of a long life together."

"I understand," Alys said after a moment, "that marriage is taken very seriously here. So it is with us."

"Hmph." The old lady waved a hand in dismissal. "Enough. We will not hold you to your earlier promise."

They stole out, hand-in-hand, like children.

*

"One more thing, Simon," Alys said quietly, under a tree laden with blossom. "One thing I have to do before we go."

*

" _Mein mafi mangne ke liye ayai hu_ ," Alys said, but the woman waved her to a chair and said, in English, "Please don't."

"I'm sorry," Alys said, again. "Please forgive me."

"Don't." She was a beautiful woman, Alys was thinking: tall and elegant in a deep green sari, with combs in her hair and no trace of red in her parting. When she stood, they were at eye-level. "We have a saying: _jo hona hain, woh hoga._ "

"Que sera sera," Alys said, with some humour.

"Yes." The woman smiled at her. "What is your name?"

"Alys Vorpatril."

"Well," she said, "I have led a long and happy life, Alys Vorpatril. A contented life. You can tell your friend I was never a spy. And my family that they are a meddlesome bunch of interfering busybodies."

"I will," Alys said, and took the proffered hand, warm in hers, and squeezed it tightly before letting go.

*

"Well, that is interesting." Cordelia looked up and smiled at Ekaterin. Miles was busy showing his youngest daughter how to assemble a foot-long jump ship in one corner and gave a grunt. "They're coming home."

"Gregor won't like it," Miles said, without looking up. "After all of that mess last year, the point was to get Simon somewhere away from here so he can't cause trouble."

"Your hypocrisy astounds me, Lord Auditor Vorkosigan." Cordelia was grinning. "It's for a visit. The Paramparans want them back. As a permanent fixture. Well, well."

Ekaterin said, "It won't be entirely on Simon's account" – and Cordelia gave her a private smile.

"Quite," she said. "I understand why they _aren't_ married, you know. It's hard, after a lifetime of becoming."

Ekaterin was holding her gaze, but a wistfulness had come into her eyes. Miles had just accidentally crushed a toy Necklin rod, and wasn't listening.

*

The farewell speeches were quite as long as the welcoming ones.

"An interesting development," said Shrimati Prathibha Chattopadhyaya. "I had some enquiries made on the public information networks of your homeworld. I looked at registers of marriages and deaths, holos on the open nets, family data held by District courts. You have never walked around the fire, Simon Illyan."

" _Saat phere_ ," Alys said.

"Quite," said Chattopadhyaya. "You have walked them, Lady Alys. But not alongside this man."

Alys smiled. "Perhaps you'll excuse me, Madam President?" she said. "I have some goodbyes I wish to say before our departure from Parampara. Thank you again for your unstinting hospitality."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Alys," said Chattopadhyaya, sounding quite sincere. "I hope to renew our acquaintance soon."

Alys bowed and withdrew. 

"Although I understand," Chattopadhyaya said thoughtfully after a moment, "that for some time you had the sort of political power to, ah, delete or remove that sort of information from public consumption, I could think of no reason for it. And… " She paused. "After all, she travelled here with you."

Simon said, "Alys and I worked together for thirty years. We" – and he was conscious of his own lack of self-consciousness – "ran the Barrayaran Imperial government. We… walked through flames, together."

She smiled and touched his arm. "Hurry back, Simon Illyan. Some time and you will become one of us."

*

"That was quite something," Simon said, as the ship lifted into orbit. It might have been a cultural characteristic that the colonists had carried with them or just a result of the obscene fecundity of their world, but the Paramparans used flowers for everything. The planet below them was glitteringly, beautifully green; there were petals gathered in his hair and stuck to the soles of his feet. Shrimati Prathibha Chattopadhyaya - and he didn't think he'd ever learn to think of her without all her names and titles - had presented the flowers ceremonially as they took formal leave of their posts. Absently, he took the garland from around his own neck and placed it around Alys's.

Alys opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. "Thank you," she said, after a while. 

When she came to brush her hair in the evening, petals rained down like a benediction. Simon met her eyes in the mirror, watching them fall.

**Author's Note:**

> Shrimati Prathiba Devayani Chattopadhyaya, or perhaps one of her predecessors, appears also in hedda62's beautiful story, [the heart is hard to translate](http://archiveofourown.org/works/540303).


End file.
